The Fourth Stall

by Chris Rylander

  I started moving toward where he kept his Books in the first stall.

  “Wait, Mac,” he said quickly, and I stopped. “I mean, yeah, sure we can do that, but we have a bigger problem right now.” Vince had a worried look on his face. “I can’t make it.”

  “What?” I asked, not sure exactly what he meant.

  “I can’t make it to the meeting at the Shed after school today.”

  “Why not, Vince?” I asked. “Does this have something to do with what happened at the lake? Look, I’m sorry if I made you mad somehow. I don’t know what I did, but whatever it was, I didn’t mean to.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Vince said. “It’s my grandma’s, like, hundred-and-fiftieth birthday, or whatever, and I have to go to her apartment after school to ‘celebrate.’ I tried my best to get out of it, but my Mom . . .”

  Vince’s mom was a cool lady most of the time, but when she was set on something, it was impossible to get her to break. Impossible. Especially when it came to family stuff. She was obsessed with family.

  “Wouldn’t you have known about this sooner than now? I mean, her birthday is the same day every year, right?”

  “Yeah, I just forgot. I don’t have a good enough excuse to miss for my mom not to get suspicious, you know?”

  “Well, I guess there’s nothing you can do, then.” Something didn’t seem right about this.

  “I’m so sorry, Mac. I begged, I pleaded . . . but my mom said stuff like, ‘This’ll probably be the last birthday you will ever get to celebrate with her!’ Believe me, I’d much rather be there to see the look on Justin’s face than to be at my grandma’s place, which smells like cat pee, while she hits me over the head with her cane and tells me to ‘sit up and speak louder’ and says a bunch of crazy things that don’t make sense.”

  I could tell that he felt pretty bad. But I also knew that he secretly wanted to go to his grandma’s. He likes going over there.

  “I already said it was fine. You don’t really need to be there anyway,” I said.

  I looked at Vince and he glanced at my shoes. Was that guilt for having to bail or something else? I used to be able to read his face as easy as a picture book, but lately, it had been more like trying to read an organic chemistry book written in Russian.

  Then the morning bell rang and ended our conversation.

  It was in the middle of class that I realized my guts suddenly felt like quicksand, and I was melting into myself until I’d eventually implode and cease to exist. Something was off about Vince, I knew it. This story about his grandma’s birthday just didn’t feel right. Now I needed to know about the money thing as well. My Books were right. I’d been lying to myself when I kept assuming it was just a numbers error I’d made. If Vince’s Books were supposedly “right” and he was the only other person with a key to the Tom Petty cashbox, then . . .

  I raised my hand. “Mr. Skari, I need to use the restroom.”

  My teacher scribbled a hall pass, and I was out the door and speed-walking toward my office before I’d even blinked once.

  I gathered up Vince’s Books as quickly as I could and started going through the most recent transactions. I guess Vince must have thought that I would never take an interest in keeping track of our money, because it didn’t take long to notice why everything was off.

  Vince had been padding the numbers. According to his Books, we’d paid the bullies slightly more than we actually did. In fact, most all of the recent payments were slightly higher in his Books than they’d actually been. Also, some of the money-received transactions were listed as slightly lower than what we’d taken in.

  I was too stunned to breathe. I’m surprised I didn’t pass out right there in the office. There had to be some sort of misunderstanding. Vince had always been the money guy. How could this happen? There was only one answer; I just didn’t want to admit it. Vince had been padding the numbers so he could steal money undetected. But that didn’t make any sense either. Why would Vince do that? This was his business, too, and if he needed extra cash for something, he would come to me and we’d find a way to get it. I couldn’t understand why he would possibly be sneaking money like this. I wondered if it had something to do with how weird he’d been acting lately. One thing was for sure—I was going to find out before the day was over.

  I slammed his Books shut, surprised at how pissed off I actually was. I put them away and then dug our Tom Petty cashbox out of the garbage can. I hid it inside the empty toilet tank in the second stall. I wasn’t just going to sit back and let Vince keep stealing cash until I found out what was going on.

  The first thing Vince said when I walked into the office at morning recess was “Mac! Our Tom Petty cash is missing!”

  And my first thought was: Why exactly did he look for it first thing when he got here? Answer: He was going to take more money.

  “It’s not missing,” I said.

  “What?” Vince asked.

  I held out my hand. Vince just looked at it. Joe and Fred walked in, saw us, and instantly stopped talking. I didn’t flinch.

  “Your Tom Petty key, please,” I said, glancing from Vince’s face to my open hand.

  “Are you serious?” he asked.

  “Unless you want to tell me why you’ve been padding numbers so you can pad your own wallet?”

  Vince looked at Fred and Joe and then back at me with a helpless look on his face. I probably should have made sure we would be alone to confront him like this; it would have been the professional thing to do, but right at that moment I didn’t really care.

  Vince dug the key out of his pocket and handed it to me without saying anything. No explanation. I suddenly felt like I had just eaten at a seafood buffet that had been sitting out in the hot sun for eight hours. I would wait until later to grill Vince about why he would do such a thing, and why he’d possibly lied to me about his grandma’s birthday party being that evening, and what the real reason was he was bailing on us. We had bigger things to take care of just then, like finalizing our plan to take out Justin after school.

  “Shall we get down to business, then?” I asked. “Unless of course anybody has any lame jokes they’d like to tell?” I glared at Vince.

  He looked away as if he’d just found something really fascinating on the wall that needed his full attention.

  Vince didn’t talk much the rest of the meeting. Every time I looked at him, he looked away, or put his head down, or rubbed his face. Good. I hoped he felt slimy like a chunk of boiled cabbage. And I was glad he wasn’t going to be at the Shed after school. I didn’t really want him there anymore anyway. Not if I couldn’t trust him. Just thinking that made me want to puke all over my desk.

  Chapter 18

  I had a hard time thinking about anything but Vince later that day when I met up with Joe, Nubby, Kitten, and Great White outside the Shed. It was thirty minutes before the scheduled meeting with Justin. I tried to put Vince out of my mind. Our plan was dangerous and needed my full attention.

  The playground and football field had been deserted since 3:25. Nobody would see what was about to go down. Kids usually cleared out pretty quickly after school and who could blame them? I certainly wasn’t going to complain—my plan didn’t exactly call for an audience.

  I unlocked the Shed with the key I’d snagged from the janitor earlier that day and ushered the bullies inside.

  “Blimey, it’s bloody hot in here,” Great White whined as they squeezed inside.

  “I know. It’ll just be twenty minutes, okay?” I said.

  “Oh, bollocks to this,” he said irritably.

  Kitten and Nubby also looked uncomfortable, but they didn’t say anything. In fact, I saw Kitten eyeing the tools on the wall like a little kid might the shelves at Toys “R” Us.

  I just shrugged and said, “Remember, the signal is ‘blue jay.’”

  “Just get on with it already,” Great White said.

  “Okay, see you soon,” I said with a grin, and shut the door. />
  I walked back to the top of the hill overlooking the football field and waited. After about fifteen minutes I saw Justin walking toward the Shed from the far end of the field. There was somebody with him, but I couldn’t tell who it was. It looked like I was outnumbered, but Justin didn’t know that I had a crew hidden inside the Shed waiting for my signal.

  That’s why I was surprised to feel so nervous. I was nervous. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this kind of anxiety. It must have been way back when I was seven or eight and about to ride my first roller coaster.

  Suddenly I really wished that Vince was with me right then, despite everything that had happened that morning. But there wasn’t really much I could do about that anymore. So I took a deep breath and trotted down the slope. I slowed at the bottom and walked across the football field to meet up with one of the school’s meanest kids. We converged on the Shed at the same time. I nodded. He nodded back. We were about ten feet away from each other, right near the Shed’s entrance.

  Justin wore really baggy jean shorts with the waist sagging down to his thighs so his boxers showed. I always think it’s lame when kids wear their pants so low. It makes them look really dorky, like they just took a dump and forgot to take off their pants first. I also noticed that Justin had shaved his head recently. I wondered if it was some sort of homage to Staples.

  The kid with Justin was his best friend, Mitch. The two are always together. And they are usually up to no good, like cheating, skipping school, smoking, or beating up younger kids, either for money or just because they feel like it. They’re basically a walking-talking duo of terror.

  Mitch also wore baggy jean shorts and a black T-shirt. His head wasn’t shaved, though; instead he was sporting his usual greasy brown hair and a white, straight-brimmed New York Yankees baseball hat worn slightly off to the side. He had his hands behind his back. I didn’t like that, but in just a few moments it wouldn’t matter.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said.

  “Whatever, man, just say what you gotta say,” Justin said.

  At that moment I saw Mitch take three quick steps toward the Shed. His hands came out from around his back to reveal a bike lock. The kind that is like a big U shape with a little bar that locks on to the end. I knew immediately what he was going to do with it.

  “Blue jay!” I shouted as loud as I could.

  But it was too late. Mitch slid the bike lock into the Shed’s door handles and then snapped on the lock bar. The doors clanked as the bullies and Joe tried to jump out. But the lock was in place, and the doors clattered harmlessly against themselves, the bullies yelling from inside.

  Mitch and Justin laughed at their pleas.

  “Trying to pull a fast one on me?” Justin scoffed.

  My stomach sank. I had been double-crossed. They knew. They had known everything about our plan. The worst part was that the Shed was like a sauna inside, and now the bullies and Joe would be trapped in there for who knew how long.

  The natural thing to do at that point would probably have been to run. But I couldn’t leave behind my hired muscle to cook like that—it wouldn’t be right. Besides, there were only two of them; maybe I could still get us out of this.

  But that’s when the chunky ham and fish-head gravy really hit the fan, as Vince’s grandma says. A car squealed to a stop behind me. I turned around and saw a black Honda with a spoiler so huge the car could probably have taken flight if it was going fast enough. The four high school kids from last Tuesday clamored out of the car and walked toward me, with PJ in the lead.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Mr. Problem Solver Guy,” PJ said. “How nice to see you again.”

  I just looked at him right in the eyes and said nothing, trying to stay calm.

  “Oooh, looks like we got a tough guy on our hands, boys,” PJ said with a sickening grin.

  The four high school kids, Justin, and Mitch grouped around me in a circle. Their shadows blocked out what little sunlight there was that day.

  “You won’t be so tough after we’re finished with you,” PJ said.

  I knew that my only chance of survival was to strike first. To surprise them. I wasn’t much of a fighter; in fact, I’d never gotten into a real fight before. But I figured I was smarter than all of these guys combined and that gave me at least one advantage.

  I spun around as they enveloped me. I quickly determined PJ to be the closest, and one of the high school kids with greasy black hair to be the biggest.

  “Hey, let’s talk about this, guys. I’ve got money. I’ll pay you. I can double what you’re making now.”

  PJ scoffed.

  “I doubt it,” Justin said.

  “Right here in my pocket I have a roll of money, and I have even more in my office.” I reached into the pocket of my jeans.

  They leaned forward eagerly. All that was in my pocket was the note I had sent to Justin. I grabbed it and pulled it out. But as my hand cleared my pocket I let the paper flutter to the grass. I made a motion like I wanted to pick it back up.

  PJ predictably bent over to get it first. That’s when I struck at him with my foot. I didn’t really have a clear plan, because like I said, I’m not a fighter. But in this case it was them or me.

  I quickly kicked back the same foot so my heel slammed into the shin of the big greasy high schooler behind me. I heard him hit the ground with a grunt. Then I turned and kicked another kid in the knee. He hit the ground like dead weight.

  The high school kid to my right reached out for me. I spun to face him and took a step back to avoid his reach. Two big hands grabbed my arms from behind. I had stepped right into them.

  I swung my body from side to side, trying to free myself, but the hands were too strong and the fingers just dug into my arms even harder. By now another kid was coming at me from the front. He had a huge smile on his face as he cracked his knuckles. I was a sitting duck and he knew it.

  “Let’s see what you got, loser,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said, and reared back his fist.

  That’s when I leaned back into the kid holding me and kicked my leg up as hard as I could. My foot connected with the one spot sure to cause the most damage. I’d never wish that sort of pain upon anyone, but this was life or death.

  “OOOoh,” he moaned as he crossed his legs and dropped to the ground.

  The kid holding my arms actually snickered. I guess it’s normally pretty funny when people get hit in the groin. Now it was his turn, though. I stamped my heel into his shin as hard as I could. He yelled and his grip loosened. I pulled away from him, and then turned and gave him my best shot. He dropped to the ground and started crying. I almost felt bad.

  PJ was still down holding his face, two other kids were in the fetal position holding their “business,” and another one was trying to get to his feet again. I looked at Justin, the only one still standing. He looked scared. I walked toward him, but then I stopped when I heard loud banging on the Shed.

  PJ had gotten up and was standing next to the doors. He held a small black tube in his hand like a can of hair spray. He stuck it against the crevice of the Shed’s doors.

  “Stop fighting, Mac, or I’ll douse your little friends,” he said.

  There could have been anything inside that black tube. It could have just been water. I looked around as the other kids were climbing back to their feet. It wasn’t a risk I was willing to take with my employees trapped inside.

  “Okay,” I said, holding my hands up.

  All of my confidence just drained out of me like ice cream from the little hole in the bottom of a waffle cone on a hot day. The other high school kids were on their feet now. Two of them grabbed me, one on each side. They squeezed hard and I felt a pain shoot through my arms. I was surrounded by kids, but I’d never felt so alone in my life.

  “You’re in trouble now, you little punk,” one of them said.

  I wanted to say “Duh,” but I thought it best to stay quiet right then.

 
; Mitch, PJ, and Justin closed in on me. PJ used his Hollister shirt to wipe his face. His nose was red. I hoped I hadn’t broken it.

  “You’re going to pay for this,” he said, looking down at his shirt.

  I nodded while raising my eyebrows and said, “Yup.”

  “Are you smarting off to me?” PJ yelled.

  I nodded.

  That’s when sharp pain erupted in my stomach. I hadn’t even seen it coming. I always thought that people overreact in movies when they get hit in the gut. I mean, how bad could it hurt, right? Well, I can say that it hurts way worse than it looks.

  The air shot out of me and a sharp pain stabbed my stomach, followed by a deep rumble that ran straight to my brain. I gasped for air, trying not to cry. It hurt worse than I ever would have imagined it could. I tried to bend over, but the two high school kids held me up. I wheezed for air, sure I was going to suffocate.

  PJ laughed.

  “Not such a cocky punk now?”

  The other kids laughed. One holding my arm whispered into my ear, “It’s payback time.”

  I continued to struggle to breathe. Just when I thought it was all over, that I was going to pass out, I finally was able to get some air in. But that’s when the side of my face exploded. Okay, it probably didn’t explode, but that’s what it felt like.

  It basically felt like Barry Bonds took batting practice on my head with a titanium baseball bat. My vision blurred and my eyes watered. I tasted blood in my mouth.

  I think I’ll spare you the rest—it wasn’t too pretty. They worked me over for what seemed like a couple hours. It couldn’t have been that long; when they stopped it was still pretty light out. I was proud that I never cried, but toward the middle I just started to go numb. I think maybe they broke my tear ducts or something, because it hurt so bad I definitely should have been crying.

  I kept wondering the whole time why no cars were stopping to help me. Maybe they just didn’t notice the little kid getting the snot beat out of him by a gang of high schoolers? Maybe they were too afraid to stop? Or just didn’t care? Or maybe they were all on Staples’s payroll, too? In any event, Staples’s hit men eventually dropped me onto the ground. I looked up to see PJ looming over me with a big smile.